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Author Topic: very short strategy article  (Read 37392 times)

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Shvegait

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #150 on: March 02, 2018, 02:11:44 pm »
+4

Upon further reflection, I think the term I'd be using is that one card is a better version of another. "Festival is a better version of Woodcutter", "Mining Village is a better Village", etc. That term doesn't imply that the costs are the same, so I feel like it's close to what people are after.

As I say, a friend suggested "bigger", and I like it.

"Festival is a bigger Woodcutter"; "Mining Village is a bigger Village". Not bad. Not bad at all.

I think "bigger" has the implication of one of the numerical stats being "more". Like, Hunting Grounds is a bigger Smithy. But would you say "2E Throne Room is a bigger 1E Throne Room"? Probably not, even though it's in fact strictly better. So it seems to be natural English sometimes but not in all cases you might want this kind of comparison.

I think the "A is a better B" construction is great. Simple, concise, carries the connotation that A does everything B does, but also does something more, which is probably what you are trying to convey most of the time you are using this type of comparison.
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Donald X.

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #151 on: March 02, 2018, 03:57:14 pm »
+4

I think the "A is a better B" construction is great. Simple, concise, carries the connotation that A does everything B does, but also does something more, which is probably what you are trying to convey most of the time you are using this type of comparison.
Hunting Party is a better Lab, but does not do everything Lab does plus extra.
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Ghacob

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #152 on: March 02, 2018, 04:11:41 pm »
0

I think the "A is a better B" construction is great. Simple, concise, carries the connotation that A does everything B does, but also does something more, which is probably what you are trying to convey most of the time you are using this type of comparison.
Hunting Party is a better Lab, but does not do everything Lab does plus extra.

Ah, but the same folks who want to call Worker's Village strictly better than Village wouldn't dare call Hunting Party strictly better than Laboratory
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Jack Rudd

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #153 on: March 02, 2018, 05:01:56 pm »
0

That's because it's easy to come up with situations where you'd rather have a Lab in hand than a Hunting Party. (Example: the top two cards of your deck are both Grand Markets.)
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blueblimp

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #154 on: March 02, 2018, 07:24:03 pm »
+6

I think looking for another term is kind of missing the point. There already is a term, which is "strictly better". The term can either be applied to a card-in-the-supply or a card-in-your-deck.

Dominion doesn't have cards that have a strictly better relationship in the supply, so for players, the only useful way to apply the term is to compare cards-in-your-deck. That's the sense in which Worker's Village is strictly better than Village.

Card designers may create strictly-better-in-the-supply relationships while designing cards. For them, it's useful to have both terms available.

If clarification is necessary, consider "strictly better in the supply", "strictly better including cost" for the supply pile; and "strictly better in your deck", "strictly better excluding cost", "strictly better effect" for card-in-deck.

Remember that the purpose of language is to communicate, not to satisfy language police.
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Witherweaver

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #155 on: March 02, 2018, 07:48:13 pm »
0

A friend has just suggested the term "bigger". I like it. Thoughts?

Bigger is definitely better.
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crj

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #156 on: March 02, 2018, 08:25:51 pm »
0

I think "bigger" has the implication of one of the numerical stats being "more". Like, Hunting Grounds is a bigger Smithy. But would you say "2E Throne Room is a bigger 1E Throne Room"?
Right now, no, I wouldn't say that. But it wouldn't be much of a stretch to agree that one could. "Bigger" feels much closer to what we're trying to express than anything else, and though it's not exactly the normal meaning of "bigger", it's also not a million miles away.
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Donald X.

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #157 on: March 03, 2018, 04:53:00 am »
+5

I think looking for another term is kind of missing the point. There already is a term, which is "strictly better". The term can either be applied to a card-in-the-supply or a card-in-your-deck.

Dominion doesn't have cards that have a strictly better relationship in the supply, so for players, the only useful way to apply the term is to compare cards-in-your-deck. That's the sense in which Worker's Village is strictly better than Village.

Card designers may create strictly-better-in-the-supply relationships while designing cards. For them, it's useful to have both terms available.
Speaking as someone who has designed a bunch of cards, I have never needed to say that a card was "strictly better in your deck" than some other card. It is not a thing that comes up. "Strictly better in the supply," yes, that one comes up.

I guess it's fair to say, I will talk about things like "village with a bonus." Well, there you go: "with a bonus."

Remember that the purpose of language is to communicate, not to satisfy language police.
I bet I push that position more than anyone here, and yet somehow when someone says "Bazaar is strictly better than Village" it just sounds like poor communicating to me. Bazaar costs $5 dude. It's not strictly better, it may not even be better. I mean there you go, the idea here is to use strictly better in such a way that a card may actually not be better, but people are still saying it's strictly better.
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Accatitippi

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #158 on: March 03, 2018, 09:38:29 am »
+8

I think Donald is coming from a different perspective to this discussion than everybody else. He doesn't want to design strictly better cards, and can change the cost of cards to be tested. So of course he cares about costs.

Pretty much everybody else here spends much more time playing Dominion than designing Dominion (but maybe not as much as the time they spend discussing Dominion). For us, coins are commodity, but we don't set prices. So, I have 5 coins, is there any reason I should consider a Village over the Bazaar? We're not here wondering if the price is right, we just wonder what to buy.

Example: I want to buy a TV. There's one for 100€ and one for 120€.
I might ask the seller: so what are the differences? "TV B is better for this and this reason."
Ok, is there a reason to prefer TV A? "No, not really, TV B is better in every regard".

Also, prices in Dominion work real weird, since you cannot usually save money and often cannot make multiple purchases. It's like buying a TV while knowing that when you get home your partner is going to take all your money from you and spend it all on booze. Might as well get a nice TV then.

The TV maker, at the same time, knows that selling TV A and TV B at the same price would be a disaster, but that's not something the buyer ever thinks about.
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terminalCopper

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #159 on: March 03, 2018, 10:30:51 am »
+7

I think looking for another term is kind of missing the point.

Imho, the whole thread is missing the point since page 2.
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FemurLemur

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #160 on: March 03, 2018, 10:55:12 am »
0

Remember that the purpose of language is to communicate, not to satisfy language police.

I don't think that the reason that most people here are looking for a term is to satisfy language police. I think it's precisely because this concept has been hard to communicate in the past. People usually think that everyone will get what they mean when they say something like "strictly better", only to find an unexpected debate spring up. Then everyone starts talking past each other and it all just kind of falls apart. So when people are trying to figure out a term we could all agree on, I think they really are attempting to figure out how to use the language to communicate. Any "policing" taking place is (I think) an attempt to be proactive and say "Is this term really going to avoid debates like you think it will?"

And, speaking as somebody who tends to be too long winded, I think it's reasonable to want to try to find a succinct way to convey an idea. The bigger your wall of text, the less likely people are to read it and the more likely they are to miss some of the nuances of what you're saying. It'd be easy to say that they should read more carefully, but it's just an internet forum. Some people can't even get coworkers to read important emails, let alone pay attention to some very specific pedantic wording on a forum. People got stuff to do, so there's value in brevity.
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FemurLemur

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #161 on: March 03, 2018, 11:27:08 am »
0

I think Donald is coming from a different perspective to this discussion than everybody else. He doesn't want to design strictly better cards, and can change the cost of cards to be tested. So of course he cares about costs.

You make a good point, although I don't think that his different perspective devalues any of the objections he has raised here. Whether you're sitting in the designer's seat or the player's, Donald's point about Dominion cards not actually being "Strictly Better" still applies. Case in point:

So, I have 5 coins, is there any reason I should consider a Village over the Bazaar?

Yeah there could be some reasons. How many buys do you have? If you have 2 or more buys, is there a $2 Card in the Kingdom? If so, does Village + that $2 Card work better with your deck than one Bazaar? Are you planning on using Forge and need some very specific costs in your deck? Do you want the option of turning those Villages into Duchies late in the game with Farmlands if you fall behind? Of course these are all edge cases, and the general rule of thumb is you'd rather have the Bazaar, but still, Dominion is a game of edge cases.
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Commodore Chuckles

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #162 on: March 03, 2018, 03:07:03 pm »
+4

I think looking for another term is kind of missing the point.

Imho, the whole thread is missing the point since page 2.

Well, that depends. Does anyone know what the point of this thread was in the first place?
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Ghacob

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #163 on: March 03, 2018, 05:02:12 pm »
+8

I think looking for another term is kind of missing the point.

Imho, the whole thread is missing the point since page 2.

Well, that depends. Does anyone know what the point of this thread was in the first place?

That's easy! The point is that boons are good.
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ehunt

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #164 on: March 04, 2018, 12:28:59 am »
+3

I think looking for another term is kind of missing the point.

Imho, the whole thread is missing the point since page 2.

Well, that depends. Does anyone know what the point of this thread was in the first place?

That's easy! The point is that boons are good.

yes!! yes! that's exactly what i was getting at
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